Followed By A Moonshadow
by ADyingGalaxy
Summary: Sequel to Empathetic Listening: Peter and Mantis are the only children aboard the Ravager ship.


Angry, high-pitched screeches and clicks that rang over immeasurable propulsions of steam were enough to keep Mantis and Peter racing for their lives.

Mantis could feel her stomach dropping and a pit of dread slowly growing as she gripped Peter's hand and sprinted with him down a corridor. Her heart was pounding and there was a roaring in her ears; but all the recognizable signals that she was afraid didn't keep Mantis from grinning from ear to ear.

Had there been time to think about it, she might've pondered the odd mixing of fear and happiness that she felt inside. Mantis was just too distracted as jets of steam and colorful reds, greens and pinks warmed her already ruddy cheeks.

* * *

He was tall and had many limbs - tentacles really - that were powerful enough to carry weight in tons - and he used it to his advantage whenever and wherever he wanted. He could trip you, slam you down on the tectonic floor or across the walls, send you crashing through equipment and ravagers alike if they were in the way - without even lifting a weapon. Worse than that, his needle teeth could sink so far through your skin that you could see them come out from the other side.

Strat was the only A'askavarii among their clan, and a mean bastard to boot. One of the lumbering crew that sincerely enjoyed the superficial highlights of being a Ravager - having the power to menace, the weight to drink, and the vicious compunction to harm anyone he had an advantage over. He fought dirty, true to the code, and picked on the weak and the small, whether it was out in a place to loot or on the ship during a petty squabble.

Despite Yondu being less than accepting of it, those like Strat didn't care one bit if the smallest and the weakest in his line of sight happened to be children.

The only two children on the Eclector took different approaches to handling his infamous presence. Peter had grown cocky very quickly, and sought to fight with his soft human flesh and his weak human bones - always losing, yet still with the audacity to glare over a bloody nose or lost tooth. On the other hand, Mantis tended to avoid altogether the places that Strat frequented the most. And if that wasn't enough, the girl could find a vent big enough to squeeze into faster than Halfworlder betting on units.

Nevertheless, somehow, Strat was always able to catch Peter Quill or Mantis unawares and torment them. It was worse if they were split up, but worse still for Strat when the Ravager captain got a whiff of the incident. And Strat didn't care - a mean bastard that would withstand a hundred public beatings just to make the kids cry.

Until that morning.

* * *

She'd been with the Ravagers for a standard year, and still the sound of violent swearing made Mantis flinch.

"When I get a hold of you two, I'm gonna skin you little shits alive!" Strat's voice was an ear-scraper. He hissed and gargled like a snake with a fork in its throat. "No! I'm gonna take one of ya and make ya watch while I skin the other!"

"Keep running! We're gonna beat 'im!" Peter's called over the deep 'mrr' of the engines working all around them. "We're gonna make it!"

His hand kept slipping from Mantis's, becoming softer and soggier as the heat doubled when they spiraled from one end of the Eclector to the other. They were in the bowels of the ship, somehow twisting their way into it in their attempt to escape a very enraged A'Askavrii coming after them. Mantis could see the outline of his smile even in the dark, blinking past as the dark and the ultraviolet came together and showed flashes of his skeleton while they maneuvered around large cylinders.

Mantis couldn't feel her legs anymore. Her friend was pulling her so hard that her boots barely touched the ground, giving her no choice but to persist. Eyes flicked from one blurry image to another as Mantis tried to simultaneously seek out a vent or a trapdoor, or even a crack in the wall where they could hide.

The conditions of their engine room/cargo bay were _not_ conducive to strategic hiding. A ton of stuff blocking them, but nothing was enough to shelter them from Strat's wrath once he caught up.

With one growl and a sharp tug, Peter's ankle was snatched mid-run and he was sent tumbling down. Peter squirmed and cursed as he was lifted from the ground, no less angry despite being at Strat's mercy.

At the same time, Mantis felt one of Strat's limbs, powerful like a sneaker wave, swipe at her and she cried out. The force of being swatted away knocked Mantis over to one side, and she lay in a crumpled heap as the shock tore at her insides.

"Let go a' me, you fuck!" The nine-year-old wheezed; all that running finally catching up to him.

Strat's mouth opened, grimy lips opening to reveal a stretch of white spikes. "You first. I'll make the little feeler watch you die in agony. Slow as honey."

He laughed from within his throat, dark eyes narrowing against Peter's much smaller form as though the boy was a hunter's prize. Mantis trembled to the side, watching in horror. All the fun from before had been knocked right out of her with the push, and now all she felt was raw fear.

"Gonna salt those wounds when I'm done." Strat licked his lips. "Terran for dinner. Creepy crawlies for dessert."

Peter yelled, trying to do some clumsy form of gymnastics just to pull himself up and tear at the tentacles that swung him upside down. His face was changing color, and though he still looked defiant, Mantis knew he couldn't keep it up forever.

She scrambled over the silver floor without thought, fear sending a spike of adrenaline straight to her heart. Mantis felt lighter than air, hardly in control of herself as she clasped her hands around Strat's calf.

"Sleep!" Mantis cried, hand gripping the sliver of bare, green skin showing beneath the A'Askavrii's pantleg.

The man went rigid, frozen in place by Mantis's powers instantaneously. He dropped Peter, body stiffening like a lightening rod while the kid rolled away. It wasn't a moment later when he collapsed onto his stomach with a giant thud, flat-face scrapping against the ground before he came to rest at where Peter had landed.

The boy stared with wide eyes, shock setting the green irises aflame like they were two comets in the valleys of the Terran's skull.

"Woah." Peter breathed.

Mantis's chest rose up and down rapidly. She could barely catch her breath as the sting of using so much energy began to make her sore, but it looked like the ravager wasn't going to get up any time soon.

Her body went as rigid as Strat's when the rapid padding of boots just behind them. Peter was still looking at her with a strange, sparkling mirth in his eyes that Mantis couldn't hope to piece out at the time. Fear was already overshadowing everything from Peter to the cargo bay to the arms wrapped around her middle, pulling her up and away from Strat's unconscious body.

* * *

A/N: I shouldn't be starting more fics. :/


End file.
